Crazy Little Thing Called Course Registration

(For your viewing pleasure, I have included some photos from my exploration of the area around the Museum of Contemporary art, although they have little connection to my post. Enjoy!)

Entrance to the Museum of Contemporary Art (Personal Photo)

Class registration was... interesting. And chaotic. 

At UWO, we register for our courses entirely online. If a class is full, we can register for another class and then swap when there’s a spot. Then there is an add/drop period, after which you’re stuck in the courses you’ve signed up for. For the most part, you then attend lectures on the first day of classes.

At the University of Nice, tutorials and electives are separate from lectures, at least in terms of registration. The entire campus signs up for those courses in the same room, regardless of year or program. For lectures, you just show up during the first week of class. Essentially, you audit your courses until sometime in October, when you register for exams. This is in place of an add/drop period, for if you decide to drop a course, you simply stop attending class and don’t sign up for the exam.

The hour before this sign-up session, my classmates and I were being told about course registration in general. From our chairs, we could see the crowd amassing outside the room, pressing against the sides of the doors and occasionally creeping a toe over the threshold. 

La Tête Carrée (Personal Photo)

At some unseen signal, they swarmed into the room like ants and filled up every available seat. Then the professors then filed in and sat in the front rows. One of them announced where each year would be registering, but because of the acoustics of the room, I couldn’t hear much more than echos. Still, I managed to successfully manoeuvre my way around the room, pushing and shoving and saying “Excusez-moi” more times than I can count. There must be an art to it, since some people were weaving their way through the mass of bodies with seeming ease.

On another note, marks are given out of 20, and phantom whispers have told me, to my inner perfectionist’s horror, that it is incredibly difficult to do well in school here. I’m trying not to think about that—I have more pressing issues at the moment [such as getting my Carte de séjour]. 

 

The Acropolis (Personal Photo)

The credit system is also different. From my understanding, courses are valued in terms of “ECTS,” which seem to translate as: 1 hour of class = 2 ECTS. Most courses are 4 ECTS. Students require 30 ECTS per semester. Thankfully, as an exchange student, I don’t have to worry too much about this. I simply pick three courses worth 4 ECTS. At this moment in time, I’m planning on taking Phonology, Medieval French and Translation (although I’m going to check out the Sociolinguistics course and a Philology courses, too).

This semester, I will only have twelve hours of class per week... a welcome reprieve from my previous semester, which was twenty-two hours per week! Plus—wait for it, wait for it!—my weekend will begin Wednesday afternoon!

We likes that, doesn’t we, Preciousss?

Baby Steps in the French Riviera

Unfortunately, all my photos of Monaco and Cannes are on my Dad’s camera, so I’ll share photos of my apartment instead.

Cannes (Day Trip - Sept. 5, 2013)

View from Apartment (Personal Photo)

Once we had settled in to the apartment, my family and I decided to explore how the buses operated, so on impulse one morning we decided to go to Cannes, famous for its annual film festival held in May. It cost us only 1.50 euros each. After days of walking around Nice, the bus ride to Cannes was a welcome respite for my feet, which throbbed at the end of each expedition.



The roads here are narrow and twist like vipers; every hamlet is a maze of twisty passages, all alike. I was glad we were not driving, for within a heartbeat I would have become lost: the extra moment it would take to process the French signs (and share that information with my father, the hypothetical driver) would inevitably lead to such an end. And that’s not including dealing with unfamiliar traffic laws and road signs!
 

After being forced off the bus at its last stop, we hit the beach. Unlike those in Nice, the beaches of Cannes are sandy, which was much gentler on my tender toes. A few minute’s walk from the beach lay the pedestrian-only area lined with shops and small cafés. As I wandered further, the way narrowed and began to twist upwards. Squeezed into the space were increasingly fancy restaurants. My stomach, not yet accustomed to the 7pm French dinner hour, was rumbling by 5:30. As we passed one restaurant, the brother of the chef convinced my family to come back for dinner, and so I found myself supping on salmon, dorade (sea bream), and crème brûlée while enjoying a glass of white wine on the house. (I should add that many French restaurants seem to close sometime in the afternoon and reopen for dinner at about 6pm; the ones that remain open all day advertise themselves as having “non-stop” service.)

 

Monaco (Day Trip - Sept. 7, 2013)

Main Room of Apartment (Personal Photo)

Two days later, our destination was Monaco, a tiny country situated an hour’s bus ride from Nice. Tourism and gambling are its main industries. It even has its own monarch. Oddly enough, I was reminded of Genovia, a similar but non-existent country from The Princess Diaries. We hopped off at the Monte Carlo Casino and, after snapping a few photos of the outside, walked down and around the bay to the Palace.

We saw a rare event: every day, at 11:55am sharp, there is the changing of the guards; however, we had chosen the lucky day when no such event occurred. Instead, we watched for 15 minutes as a forklift shoved some steel beams onto the back of a transport truck. As we waited in vain, I saw pigeon missing one of its feet and dubbed it Peggy, the peg-legged pigeon. I also saw a seagull the size of a small dog and thought it was going to snatch my baguette panini sandwich from my hands.



A “Nice” Arrival (Sept. 2, 2013)

Baie des Anges - View from le Château (Personal Photo)

I will only get away with writing this once—Nice is very nice.

The water of the Baie des Anges is impossibly blue, although strangely enough, the air smells only faintly of the sea, if at all. Every single day but one has been sunny, and even when it did rain, it cleared up by mid-morning. From the walkway along the beach, I can see all the way across the city; at night, streetlamps light up the coast. Day or night, the bay makes a perfect postcard photo.

Beautiful city aside... It was a very long day. Groggy from a combination of sleep deprivation and jet lag, I missed my bus stop and had to haul my luggage an extra half-mile to my apartment. Unlike back home, the names of the upcoming stops are neither announced nor displayed, and the street names are displayed on plaques on buildings rather than signs at intersections. Despite this mishap, I located my apartment easily (although I had fun with the keys, which are finicky) and napped. Later, I met my coordinator for dinner at a restaurant called Le Québec. With my expert internal GPS, I got lost several times despite preplanning my route and checking my map every five minutes.

 

Promenade des Anglais at night (Personal Photo)

Walking home in the dark, I was more anxious than I have ever been at night. My heart pounded with every step I took, but I set forth with a look of determination and false confidence. At night, everyone seems shifty (especially men lounging on doorsteps or investigating the dumpsters), and shadows leap from dark alleys. Nothing happened, fortunately. Perhaps I am simply paranoid from being in an unfamiliar environment, but if I had been watching me as a movie, I would have been screaming, “Don’t do it, stupid!” Next time I’m shelling out the Euros for a bus ticket. The Promenade des Anglais (walkway along the beach) is less intimidating than the narrow sidewalks of the other streets.


My parents dragged themselves onto my doorstep the next day, equally disoriented and fatigued. We spent a leisurely day at the beach and celebrated our survival with a bottle of wine. Speaking of which, wine is plentiful and cheap here. The grocery store has an entire aisle devoted to it, and bottles sell for as few as 3 Euros. My father shared some advice he obtained from a wine tasting: find a cheap bottle of wine that you love. Coca Cola (from our limited experience) is expensive, barely cheaper than wine.

It must sound like I am living a dream, that this has all been a vacation so far. For all its ups, there have been downs as well, and people don't always mention those in idealistic Facebook statuses about how wonderful their lives are. It is hot enough here that within minutes of being outside, my skin is slick with sweat. Despite wearing SPF 60 and 85 sunscreen, my cheeks turn pink after a mere two hours at the beach. My apartment lacks AC, and because I shut my balcony door at night for security purposes, I am too hot at night to sleep well (this will be less of an issue as winter approaches). Another mishap: when I went to the bank to get my debit card, I was told it wasn’t there. Without my bank card, I cannot get a mobile phone plan or internet. Woe is me! I must use campus wifi.

I have had more adventures in my first week, but those shall be saved for my next post.

Until next time!